A technology professional's experiences with and observations about new technology products, new developments such as virtual environments, artificial intelligence, online gaming, entertainment and streaming services and software particularly image editing applications and Filemaker Pro.

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Friday, December 07, 2007

Before I took the fateful trip to Naples and wound up in the hospital (I'm there still!) I spent a day selecting presents for my grandsons and other members of my family. I thought some of you would be interested in techcnology gifts a geek like me actually selects for other people.

Grandsons (Ages 4 - 7)

Jakks EyeClops Bionic Eye by Jakks

This product allows children to examine anything with it and the magnified result will display on a television set.

Hasbro FurReal Friends Squawkers McCaw Parrot

* Squawkers McCaw is a witty, energetic, and unpredictable talking parrot* Interacts in incredibly realistic ways: Repeats words, can be taught to joke and sing, and responds to touch* Velvety feather coat and vibrant colors resemble those of actual macaw* Loves to be fed; comes with toy biscuit and perch* SQUAWKERS McCAW the parrot is a talkin¿, squawkin¿, and totally unpredictable play pal!

My son's oldest boy speaks Japanese (my daughter-in-laaw is Japanese) so I bought the Macaw to help him practice Engllish.

I wanted to be able to see my grandson and family engaged in various activities since I live so far away, I rarely get a chance to see them.

I also went half on an Apple Nanopod for him.Also bought him a Flypen to convert notes to computer text. Actually, I consider a shared gift with his mother (my daughter). I explained what a Flypen does and she says it would be perfect for all of the meetings she attends where she takes notes that have to be transcribed later by her assistant. She works for the world's largest supplier of equestrian equipment and is often literally "in the field" evaluating new products where a full sized laptop would be awkward.

Adults:

Franklin TG-490 Speaking Translator for the traveler in the house!New Digital Camera - Always popular gift. I'm reviewing stats. Thought I would like to replace Fujifilm Finepix F30 with Finepix F50D but noise issue (as presented in review in DPReview) is concern for low light photography in museums. F50D also lacks image stabilization - my one main criticisim of the F30. Very impressed with colleague's Sony H7 camera performance in low light in Naples. I guess I'll need to think this over more.

Photoshop Elements software - VERY intuitive and featureful and available through techhead.org for a fraction of the price of its parent product. I've used Elements now for over six months and vastly prefer it to the full version of Photoshop. Only missing features involving CMYK for those doing press work. Also does not have Macro recording feature. I seldom used either of these features so I don't miss them.

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I am passionate about technology, education and history, particularly ancient history. I am constantly exploring ways to use technology to enhance the learning environment and am particularly ecstatic when I can develop a technology to advance the study of ancient history.Follow me on Twitter! Comments or Questions: mharrsch@uoregon.edu

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